Origin

Young and youth (Old English) are from the same ancient root as Latin juvenis ‘young’, source of juvenile (early 17th century) and rejuvenate (early 19th century). The good die young is a proverb from the late 17th century, but the idea goes back to the ancient Greek playwright Menander, who wrote: ‘Whom the gods love dies young.’ A young turk is now a young person eager for radical change, a meaning that comes from the Young Turks who carried out the revolution of 1908 in the Ottoman Empire and deposed the sultan Abdul Hamid II.